


the moment you arrived they built you up

by nevershootamockingbird



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, Friendship, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-27 06:17:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15018485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevershootamockingbird/pseuds/nevershootamockingbird
Summary: Bile rises in his throat as the words come to his mind, another veil falling away and now he can see it clearly, all that transpired the night before. He swallows it back down, keeps his breathing calm and his muscles relaxed, focuses on keeping the calm facade in place. The others are talking, now, Rissa speaking again, deciding where they will go and what they should do.Caleb cannot think of anything but baring that corner of his soul to Jester.





	the moment you arrived they built you up

**Author's Note:**

> This more or less requires you to have some knowledge of what happened during the most recent episode, ep 24! Spoilers ahead if you aren't quite caught up or haven't seen the big reveals of what happened. 
> 
> Oh, Caleb. My heart hurts for him. Panic! dropped their new album the night of the episode, and I heard Dying in LA, and it was instantly such a Caleb song for me. One thing led to another, and now here we are, 24 hours and a bleeding heart later. I want to know everything about Caleb's relationship with Astrid, and Eodwulf, and I want to know so badly if they are still alive, if they are still working for Trent, if they got out, if they are dead.
> 
> I don't know, though, so here is this. Here is Caleb remembering, and dealing with his own fall out and traumas. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Caleb does not remember, at first. 

It would be hard to remember over the pounding of the hangover, the taste that perhaps something has died in his mouth. It would be hard to remember over the anger that collects the group upon the realization that most of their gold is gone, taken and dealt with, nothing left behind save regret and indignation. He doesn’t mind, particularly; it is not as though he has ever had much, and he knows how to make do with none. But his-- his friends, they are upset, and so he agrees that they should find who stole their gold, after. 

He does not remember, not quite, when they order breakfast and Fjord stumbles away to talk to a guard and Jester begins the interrogation at the bar, but there is something at the back of his mind, something festering that he can’t quite name. He scrapes part of his breakfast onto to Nott’s plate when it arrives, same as he always does; he’s surprised when Beauregard immediately does the same to him. 

“Shut up, I’m too nauseas for all of this,” she grouses when he glances her way, already lifting a piece of bacon up to her mouth. The tips of her ears are a dull red but Caleb knows better than to point this out. 

“Thank you,” he murmurs quietly instead, then falls back into silence with the rest of their companions as they try to will away their headaches. He envies Jester, Yasha, and Kiri, but is glad, he thinks, of last night’s events. It was, well, fun, even with the misery of this morning; it has been a long time since he has done anything of the like. 

Beauregard doesn’t complain when he pushes his plate towards her, a quarter of the food still remaining, just nods and seems pleased that he ate any before she begins to shovel the rest into her mouth. It is disquieting, still, to have more than Nott care for him, try to look out for him; he turns his attention away, shakes off the thought, tries to pick at the fuzzy memory in his mind. 

Jester had gone a little quiet after questioning Ireena and Rissa, but she brightens quickly when Yasha asks what exactly had happened. Caleb glances over Kiri’s head as he listens, Jester regaling Yasha and the small kenku with tales. The words wash over him and help him piece together the night as she talks about the drinking and the flowers and the competition and--

“And we danced! Caleb, you know, he wasn’t great but he wasn’t terrible at all, we waltzed!” Jester says brightly, and Caleb is shocked into meeting her gaze as she speaks, feels the air escape his lungs and his fingers twitch against the rough wood. Jester’s smile goes a little funny for a moment, uncertainty passing through her gaze, but it’s gone as she says, “It was so much fun! He let me lead, and then the pianist, who was so good! Anyway, he started playing better music for us, and then Molly started dancing with Nott, and then other people joined, too!”

_ You always were a better dancer than me, Astrid. _

The memory unfurls, blooms on the back of his throat like it means to suffocate him, and his blood runs cold. Caleb drops his gaze down, clenches his jaw as he swallows hard, grateful he has not yet pulled his hair back so it can hang shaggy and unkempt, blocking out everything but the table underneath his bandaged hands. 

They are almost clean, for once, but for a horrifying moment he seems as them as they were, that night, blackened and blistered and burning, hears laughters and knows it is from now, it is from here, but he can hear it overlapped with light giggles, deep bellylaughs, muffled snickers, and it is too much. He can feel himself slipping away, back into the shell he inhabits after-- well, after, and this should not happen now, not here, he cannot give answers but he cannot stop it, either, and Caleb has resigned himself to this fate when Beau nudges her elbow into his ribs, just enough to make him jerk in response, and the fog over his mind breaks. 

He does not look up, but he hears, now, Nott sighing in relief, realizes she had been whispering his name. He uncurls his hands, presses his palms to the table and feels the women on either side of him relax, untense and unwind. 

_ I’m sure Astrid loves you very much. _

Bile rises in his throat as the words come to his mind, another veil falling away and now he can see it clearly, all that transpired the night before. He swallows it back down, keeps his breathing calm and his muscles relaxed, focuses on keeping the calm facade in place. The others are talking, now, Rissa speaking again, deciding where they will go and what they should do.

Caleb cannot think of anything but baring that corner of his soul to Jester.

He wants to be grateful, he thinks, for what she said to him; he wants to laugh, at the absurdity of her words, at the thought that Astrid would love him, now. 

He thinks he wants to sleep, for a very long time, until he is forgotten and alone and able to do his research, until he can warp time and reality and fix this, his life,  _ everything _ . 

Caleb wants a lot of things. He is used to not getting them.

Nott tugs gently at his sleeve, and Caleb stands automatically, straightening his coat as his friends gather their things. He falls in just behind Nott and Jester as they head out, Rissa leading the way towards her father’s shop as Beauregard begins to ask more questions. Molly is in his periphery, Fjord sweating just beyond, Yasha and Kiri bringing up the rear, but for a moment Caleb could swear it is just two others with him, smiling ghosts that reach out and laugh and take his hands, his heart. 

In front of him, Jester takes Nott’s hand; now that he has said it, it as though he cannot unsee how alike she is, his new friend, to the one he held so dear, so long ago. The hope, the trust and faith, the brightness for life-- gods, it lights an ache in him that had long dulled to a quiet spark, now again a near-deafening roar. 

He had told her that she was a better dancer than him, had called her by  _ that _ name, and Jester-- she had only faltered a little, had still taken care of him and seen him to bed, had tried to reassure him. 

Astrid would have done the same. 

Astrid had been better than him, than them, in every aspect. She had been better than he and Eodwulf at dancing, at saying the right words and looking for the right signs, at learning the right magic. If he and Eodwulf had been bright, then Astrid had been radiant, had been the very sun they had gone in orbit around until-- well. 

Until. 

Caleb forces his mind back into the present, pushes the ghosts to the back of his mind for later, always for later, lets his gaze stray to the back of Jester’s head, watching blue curls as he keeps pace with the group. He had called her by the wrong name, and she has yet to bring it up; he had called her by the wrong name, and she had not been angry, or hurt, or demanded to know more. He called her the wrong name, Caleb marvels, and she had still  _ cared _ . 

He does not know how to apologize. 

He does not know how to apologize, not for what he has said and for what he cannot say, will not say, not yet, not now. Jester’s voice pitches excitedly, latching onto a suggestion from Beau, and he feels the guilt swirl in his gut again, ever-present and bitter. 

Caleb will not make this mistake again. 

Jester is  _ not  _ Astrid, and he is not the boy he once was, who loved her so fiercely and blindly. Jester is better, he thinks, will be better, than she was, than  _ he _ was. Caleb will not fail, again. 

He cannot fail his family. Not again. 

Jester laughs, and for a moment, there is another woman in her place. Caleb blinks, and it is just his new friend, blue and filled with light, radiant. 

Caleb will try to see that she stays that way. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry, let me get that out of the way now. This hurt me to write, but I had to. I am still aching over those moments between Caleb and Jester. Their friendship is going to be so beautiful and big and bright one day; I'm so glad we're able to watch it grow from the beginning, though. 
> 
> Title is, of course, from Dying in LA by Panic! at the Disco. It just fit, so very well, with what we know of Caleb's backstory and the academy. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Again, I do hope that you enjoyed this and it felt at least somewhat true to the characters. You can find me yelling about critrole, my dnd ocs, and a lot of other things in general over on [tumblr](https://nevershootamockingbird.tumblr.com) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/daleytwin1) if you feel like yelling with me about these lovely characters :)


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